My baby died after doctors operated on the wrong lung

Devastated: Katrina Jackson has accepted damages from a hospital that operated on her baby's healthy lung, contributing to its death

A premature baby diagnosed with a collapsed lung died after doctors operated on the wrong side.

Mother of three Katrina Jackson claims they examined a chest X ray of her son Clark back to front and treated the right lung instead of the left.

She accuses staff of a series of blunders after the baby was born three months early weighing just over 2lb.

Mrs Jackson and her husband David have been awarded more than £10,000 in an out-of-court settlement with Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester.

But she said: "The payout means absolutely nothing to me. It has been put in trust for his siblings. But I want people to know so that other families do not go through what we have been through. We believe the treatment Clark received at the hospital was appalling and he would have had a good chance of surviving if he had had better care."

Mrs Jackson, 34, from Timperley, Greater Manchester, had spent five weeks in hospital before the birth due to complications with her pregnancy.

She said her son was breathing and kicking when he was born but his condition deteriorated because treatment was delayed by a lack of staff and specialist equipment.

She said staff did not make checks during her 17-hour labour and she was left to give birth alone.

"I had to scream for the midwife because she was out of the room and there was no other staff there despite the fact I was about to give birth to a very premature baby.

When Clark was born he was breathing and kicking and showing all the normal signs of life but equipment which could have helped him was not ready.

"It took the resuscitation team around six minutes to get to him."

Clark was found to have suffered from a pneumothorax, in which air gets in between the two pleural layers of the lung, causing the lung to collapse.

Mrs Jackson continued: "Doctors had the X-ray of his chest back to front which meant they operated on the wrong lung."

When her baby continued to struggle to breathe, medical staff failed to X-ray him again, she said, and he died at just 11 hours old.

Solicitor Adam Smith, who helped Mrs Jackson and her husband, a 41-year-old businessman, reach a settlement with the hospital, said: "This is an alarming and tragic case where hospital staff made fundamental errors."

A spokesman for the hospital admitted that staff had not treated the lung condition properly, but denied other failings in the maternity care.

She said: "As a result of a full investigationwe accepted that there was a failure to appropriately treat a pneumothorax in Clark Jackson's left lung.

"Clark was very poorly and was unlikely to survive beyond a short period of time, but the trust has accepted that the clinical error contributed to his tragic death.

"Lessons have been learnt from the investigation to minimise the risk of this occurring again.

"The trust wishes to express its sincere regret for the circumstances giving rise to the death."